“They had an organized effort in 2008, they have no, that I’ve been able to see, since then. It is a very secretive operation, if they have one,” he said. “I haven’t seen it. I think they’re doing nothing.”

Nebraska is one of two states (the other is Maine) that allocates its electoral votes by congressional district, rather than to the overall state winner. In 2008, the Obama campaign saw the 2nd District — the conservative state’s least Republican — as an opportunity and managed a narrow 50 percent to 49 percent win there.

The above interview suggests some coolness between Kerrey, the former governor and senator, and the Obama campaign. The president’s campaign hasn’t exactly been invisible in Omaha: It opened its Omaha headquarters in March and Michelle Obama visited the city a month later.

Kerrey didn’t endear himself to the Obama campaign in 2008 either. He raised eyebrows following his endorsement of Hillary Clinton, when he said, “I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There's a billion people on the planet that are Muslims and I think that experience is a big deal."

He later apologized to Obama in an effusive letter and enthusiastically supported him in the fall, even lauding the president’s efforts in Omaha.

This time around, when asked whether he’ll see the president when Obama visits the area Monday — at a rally across the Missouri River from Omaha in Council Bluffs, Iowa — Kerrey responds, “Has he told you where he’ll be?”

In any case, Kerrey would be unlikely to tether himself to the president now that he is seeking to return to the Senate. Obama is expected to lose Nebraska by a wide margin, even if the Omaha area figures to be more competitive.